


5 Women Damon Salvatore Loved (For Better or Worse)

by lit_chick08



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 00:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit_chick08/pseuds/lit_chick08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Women were always Damon's weakness</p>
            </blockquote>





	5 Women Damon Salvatore Loved (For Better or Worse)

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Specific spoilers for 1x06 “Lost Girls”, 1x11 “Bloodlines”, 1x19 “Miss Mystic Falls,” 2x01 “The Descent”, 2x03 “Bad Moon Rising”, 2x21 “The Longest Day”, and 2x22 “As I Lay Dying”

**1\. Gianna Salvatore**

Damon was eight-years-old when he learned he was not his father’s son.

Like the rest of the household, Damon could not sleep the night his mother went into labor with the latest baby; though his room was far away from his mother’s chamber and Coretta, his nanny, insisted on keeping him confined to his bedroom, Damon knew there was no way he was going to be able to sleep until he knew his mother was okay. There were already three dead babies buried on the edge of the property, and his mother always cried so hard whenever the babies did not survive. The last one had lived for 2 months; Damon had just started allowing himself to really enjoy his baby sister when she died, too. For weeks his mother cried when his father left the house, and Damon always snuck into whatever room she was in to offer his support.

Despite his best efforts, Damon’s eyes began to droop as the moon rose high into the autumn sky, and he cursed himself for even considering sleeping. And then Coretta opened his door, her face a curious mixture of disapproval and affection.

“Your mama is fine,” she informed him even as she hustled him back into bed, tucking the blankets around him. “And you have a little brother.”

“What’s his name?” Damon asked sleepily, smiling as Coretta pushed his dark hair from his face, pressing her lips against his forehead.

“I think your daddy said he’s Stefan.”

 _Stefan_ , Damon silently repeated until sleep finally took him.

In the morning, after inhaling his breakfast and having his face and hands viciously scrubbed by Coretta, Damon was finally able to see his mother and brother. He was always impatient, never quite able to remain still, but it was even worse as he followed Coretta through the hallways of the house, bouncing on the balls of his feet with every step.

“You got to be quiet,” Coretta advised, “and don’t go overwhelming her.”

If Coretta was protective of him, she was _over_ -protective of his mother. In addition to being impatient, Damon was also sneaky, and he had listened one afternoon as Coretta referred to his mother as “little more than a child” as she berated his father for “getting so many babies on her when she just can’t take it.” Damon had no idea what exactly she meant, but it made him grateful Coretta was taking care of her, too.

Gianna was propped up against the headboard, singing sweetly in Italian when Damon entered, poking his head around Coretta’s body to see her for himself she was alright. His mother smiled broadly and immediately waved him over.

“Come see Stefan, my love,” she encouraged, her words soft and lilting. His mother very rarely spoke English to him, and Damon knew it angered his father, especially when Damon had begun to speak with an accent similar to the one Giuseppe had worked so hard to be free of. She only ever spoke in Italian when Giuseppe was gone, and it made Damon warm inside to have a secret with his mother.

Damon carefully climbed into the massive bed, shimmying across the mattress to look upon his brother’s tiny face. His skin was darker than Damon’s, his hair the same sandy color as their father’s, and, when he finally blinked his eyes open, Damon saw they were not the same blue Damon shared with their mother.

Damon had never felt jealousy with any of the girl babies, but he could already feel it building, made better only by the fact Stefan did not look like Gianna.

“Doctor Gilbert says he is very strong and healthy,” Gianna explained, transferring the baby in her arms so Damon could see him better, “but he is going to need a big brother to show him the way. Do you think you could do that?”

“Of course,” Damon swore automatically, cautiously touching the thin skin on Stefan’s hand. “I can show him everything.”

“And you must always protect him, even above yourself,” Gianna continued, carefully adjusting Damon’s arms before setting Stefan in them. “It will be difficult sometimes, but you must always watch out for Stefan. Do you understand?”

“I understand. I will always protect him, Mama, no matter what.”

Gianna smiled, brushing her lips against his temple. “Oh, I do not doubt it. Your heart is so loving, I know you will do anything for anyone.”

Damon grinned, basking in his mother’s praise, as he stared down at Stefan, whose eyes were drifting shut.

When Damon heard his father bark his name sharply, he jolted, jostling the baby and sending Stefan into a round of tears. Gianna instantly took the baby back, her husband’s name on her lips, as Giuseppe tugged Damon from the bed, fury in his face.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Giuseppe barked as Damon hit the floor, quickly climbing to his feet, anticipating a blow. “You shouldn’t be in here!”

“Giuseppe, stop!” Gianna cried, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “I asked Coretta – “

“I do not want him around _my_ son!” Giuseppe shouted, gripping Damon by his upper arm and all but tossing him into Coretta’s arms. “Take him out of here and do not let him back in!”

As Coretta quickly hurried him away, Damon cast one final look over his shoulder before Giuseppe slammed the door closed.

Damon did not see his mother or Stefan for the next week.

On the morning of the eighth day since his father threw him out of the room, Damon awoke to Gianna slipping into his bed, her hands gently gathering him to her breast. Damon inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of rosewater and honeysuckle, as he blinked awake to find his mother’s kind face. In the early morning light with her hair around her shoulders, Gianna looked much younger than her twenty-one years, especially when she smiled, her blue eyes alight with happiness.

“Mama,” he murmured, unembarrassed to use the babyish name for her when they were alone, snuggling closer to her beneath the blankets.

“Wake up, my love. I want to show you something wonderful.”

Damon dutifully hoisted himself into a sitting position, stunned to see his mother in nothing but her nightdress and slippers. She grabbed a quilt from the bed before motioning for him to follow her, her movements less spritely than normal. Damon trailed her out to the front porch, the sky just starting to lighten as the sun began its ascent over the horizon, and Gianna sat down on chaise, pulling Damon against her body as she cocooned their bodies in the quilt.

“That sun,” Gianna began, pointing to in the distance, “is the same sun everywhere in the world. In Rome, where I lived, I used to wake up every morning and watch it rise, because I knew every day could be a new adventure.”

Giuseppe never spoke of Italy; when Damon asked him questions, he always reacted angrily, snapping there was a reason he left. Gianna, however, always spoke of it so warmly it made Damon ache for the places she described in vivid detail.

“I like adventures,” Damon murmured sleepily.

“I know you do. We have that in common.”

After a beat, Damon ventured, “Mama?”

“Yes, my love?”

“Why does Father hate me? Why does he say I’m not his son?”

Gianna sighed, her arms tightening around him. For a moment, Damon thought she wasn’t going to answer him; and then, in a voice he barely recognized, she whispered, “Can you keep a secret, Damon?”

“Yes,” he immediately promised, anticipation building.

“It is a secret you will need to keep forever,” she continued, “even from Stefan when he is older. Are you certain you can do that?”

“I will never tell a single soul,” Damon vowed.

Kissing the top of his head, Gianna sighed. “Once upon a time, your mama was not much older than you when I met a man I loved very much. And because we loved each other so much, we made you. But Mama’s parents, they did not like the man I loved so much, so they asked their very good friend who needed a wife he would marry me. And so I married your father, and we left Italy to come to Virginia.”

Damon’s brow furrowed as he attempted to puzzle out the story’s meaning. “So Father…he did not put me in your stomach the way he did Stefan?”

Gianna shook her head, kissing him again. “No, he did not, but he has raised you like his own, and it is very important people not know any differently or they would be very unkind to both me and you.”

“He loves Stefan more,” Damon deduced, equal parts hurt at Giuseppe’s rejection and relief he was not his actual father.

Gianna did not dispute the point. Instead, she gathered him even closer, her lips brushing the shell of his ear, as she swore, “Then I shall love you just a little more than Stefan so you both are equally loved.”

“I love you more already.”

Ten years later, as Damon sat in the church listening to Reverend Fell sing his mother’s praises, Giuseppe sitting silently at the end of the pew, Stefan sniffling beside him, Damon knew he had lost the only person who had ever truly loved him.

 **2\. Katherine Pierce**

In the beginning, Damon had every intention of allowing Katherine to be Stefan’s love.

When he returned to Mystic Falls on leave, he had been stunned to find Katherine having tea with Stefan and Giuseppe; rarely did they have houseguests, especially young, pretty, female guests. He introduced himself gallantly, the manners Coretta beat into him coming out to play, but Giuseppe warned him fiercely Katherine was not to be interfered with in any way.

“I know of your escapades,” Giuseppe growled upon finding Damon and Katherine talking alone in the gardens, “and you will not bring shame to that girl or this house.”

Irritating Giuseppe was his primary reason for continuing his interactions with Katherine; it was not until Stefan confessed one afternoon, as they recovered their breaths following a rigorous game of football, that he was in love with Katherine that Damon realized just how much he cared for her too.

“In love with her?” he repeated, surprise in his voice. Stefan was seventeen, old enough to be betrothed or married, but he had never once seen his younger brother express any interest in the girls in town. Damon suspected this was because of his shyness, a trait which bothered even Giuseppe, who insisted Salvatores were never tentative. To see Stefan in love with a woman so wondrously uninhibited was amusing to say the very least.

Stefan nodded, wiping at his brow. “She is unlike anyone I have ever known. When I look at her…the way she makes me _feel_ …Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Damon nodded mildly, recalling his first infatuation; Emma Fell had been one of the only women Damon had ever seriously considered courting, but Honoria swiftly made sure her only daughter made a more acceptable match. After all, Giuseppe was not the only one who knew of Damon’s _escapades_.

“You want to lie with her,” Damon interpreted, a smirk on his lips.

Stefan blushed fiercely as he shook his head. “I want to _marry_ her, Damon, not make her my mistress.”

“Have you spoken to Father?”

“Not yet; Katherine says we should until we’ve known each other longer.”

Damon arched an eyebrow. “You’ve told Katherine of your intentions?”

“Of course.” Concern folding his brow, he pressed, “Do you think I should have waited?”

Damon did not want to tell him that there was no way Giuseppe Salvatore would ever allow his favorite son (his _real_ son) to ever marry an orphan with no wealth; his hopes would be dashed soon enough. “I am sure she thought it romantic.”

Stefan smiled, pleased at the idea, before leaning closer, his eyes darting towards the house. Instinctively Damon moved closer, prepared to hear his brother’s confidence, to play the dutiful older brother. “Can I ask you something?”

Damon shrugged, nodding for him to continue.

“Katherine asked…She wants me to come to her room tonight.”

The familiar burn of rivalry twisted in Damon’s stomach. He was attracted to Katherine, yes, and he already knew Katherine was no innocent, not after the way she had touched him in the woods while Emily stood watch. But she had rebuffed his attempts at getting under her skirts, declaring it was not time yet, and she certainly had not invited him to her room.

“Did she?”

Stefan nodded, his eyes still flicking towards the house as if afraid of being caught. “And I want to go to her room but…” He flushed a brilliant shade of scarlet, twisting blades of grass in his hands, and Damon immediately understood what he was asking.

“You’ve never been with a woman.”

He shook his head, embarrassment painting his features. “We have kissed before but never have I taken liberties with her nor would I ask if she did not…I do not know what I am supposed to do with her.”

The older brother in Damon desperately wanted to tease him; the rival wanted to give him poor information. Instead, he said, “Katherine will show you.”

“But she will not know,” Stefan retorted, eyes wide with innocence. “She would know even less than I do on the subject.”

Thinking of Katherine’s lips sealed around his member, Damon struggled not to scoff. “Let Katherine set the pace. The woman should always be the one to dictate what happens and when it does.”

“And if she…if she wants to be together…as man and wife?”

Damon could not help but smile at Stefan’s phrasing. “Then you thank her for taking pity on someone as hopeless as you and pray you do not spend before you even get it in her.”

Stefan smacked him in the shoulder, irritation on his face, and Damon laughed loudly before clapping Stefan on the back. “You go slowly, you think of anything you can to distract yourself from how good it feels, and you do not spend inside of her. If you get her pregnant, she’ll be ruined.”

Stefan nodded in understanding, cataloguing his words the way he had their school lessons, and Damon could not stop him from feeling the rush of affection towards his little brother, even if he was going to sleep with the woman Damon loved.

The next afternoon, as Damon returned from visiting George Lockwood, he spotted Katherine and Emily exiting Miss Pearl’s apothecary. He knew from his conversation earlier in the day that Stefan had lost his virginity to the wondrous Miss Pierce the night before; his usually taciturn brother had become unbelievably verbose as he described his late night activities with their houseguest, genuine awe on his face. Damon hated the anger he felt towards Stefan as a result of his trysts with Katherine, and Damon suddenly _despised_ Katherine for being so loose with both of them.

“Why, Damon Salvatore,” Katherine drawled as they approached, the most seductive of smiles on her face, “do not pretend you do not see me.”

Damon’s smile was brittle as he dutifully stopped, his body stiff. “I highly doubt anyone could not notice you, Miss Katherine.”

“Miss Katherine,” she echoed with amusement. “We are past the point of formality, are we not, _Mister_ Salvatore?”

Keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard by passersby, Damon could not help but snap, “No, I believe you are past the formality with my brother.”

If she heard the implied insult, she did not acknowledge it. Instead, she rolled her eyes in a most indelicate manner and declared, “Do not tell me you are going to be one of those terribly average men who puffs up in jealousy at the slightest thing.”

“Slight?” Damon parroted, anger flooding his cheeks. “If this a slight to you, Miss, I do not wish to find out what you call severe.”

“Damon – “

“It is bad enough you treat me with such unkindness,” he growled, uncaring if Emily overheard, “but to do so with Stefan, who holds you in such high regard – “

“Stefan is not – “

“There is a word for women like you,” Damon barreled on, his rage running away with him.

“And there is a word for men like you,” Katherine retorted, beautiful face now overwhelmed with affront, “but I am too much of a lady to say it.”

“I believe you have already proved how little of a lady you are.”

Katherine recoiled sharply, and Damon knew he should apologize, especially once he saw the look of concern on Emily’s face. However, Katherine did not lash out the way he expected her to; instead, she grinned predatorily and declared, “You have not yet seen how little of a lady I can be.”

She came to his room that night, her body gorgeous, her face feral. Damon knew he should be afraid, but instead he was captivated by the strength and grace of her movements even as she tore into his throat with vigor.

Afterward, as they lied entangled in his soiled sheets, his blood staining his pillowcase, Katherine rolled onto her side and announced, “We are going to spend eternity together, sweet Damon.”

He did not care if Katherine slipped into Stefan’s room after that.

After all, if he was going to have Katherine forever, why should he begrudge Stefan a little mortal pleasure?

 **3\. Bree Turner**

He had sworn to Emily Bennett he would protect her descendants, and so, every decade, Damon looked up the men and women who could call Emily Bennett their grandmother. In 1989, the promise led him to Georgia and 19-year-old Bree Turner.

After nearly 120 years, Damon had gotten good at picking out Emily’s descendants; they always had some feature of hers, some telltale sign they belonged to the witch who had saved Katherine’s life. Damon had glimpsed Sheila Bennett during his last trip through Mystic Falls, and, after quickly assessing she was more than capable of caring for herself, he ventured further south to find the grandchildren of Emily’s daughter.

He knew her daughter had married a Turner, a tall, stern-faced man Damon had not particularly liked; Emily’s daughter had always had a soft spot for him, grateful for the way he had saved their lives the night the Founders came for their mother, and Damon had genuinely liked Bonita Bennett. When she died, Damon felt the smallest flicker of sadness before quickly pushing it down, and so he kept a special eye on Bonita’s children.

Brianne Turner looked nothing like her great-grandmother. She was all legs, taller than most of the boys she went to school with, with the curliest hair Damon had ever seen. Despite her obvious prettiness, people were intimidated by her presence, and he could read the loneliness on her face, the desperation for connection. Damon knew Brianne was the last of the Turners; she was an only child to a single, alcoholic mother, and he wondered if she even knew she was a witch.

He purposefully positioned himself to run into her one day, dumping the contents of her lunch tray; immediately Damon began to apologize, slathering on the charm which had kept him so popular with women in the past 100 years, and she blushed prettily when he offered to buy her another lunch.

“I’m Damon,” he said as she carefully glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Bree,” she offered softly.

He told himself his interest in her was purely driven by his vow to Emily.

Damon didn’t fully believe it.

A month after their initial meeting, Damon is draped across her bed, idly flipping through her history text when Bree blurts out, “I’m a witch.”

He glanced up from a portrait of Lincoln, his face impassive. Damon watched as she twisted and squirmed, clearly unsure how he was going to react, and he knew he should respond quickly to set her at ease, but he had always had a flair for the dramatic.

Finally, after nearly a full minute’s silence, he simply said, “I know.”

“How?”

“Because I’m a vampire.”

To Bree’ credit, she did not gasp or scream; she didn’t require compulsion of any kind. Instead, she studied him the way she studied everything before scooting closer to him, a tentative smile on her face.

“Want to see something cool?”

As the feathers danced around them, Damon could not help but grin at the look of freedom on Bree’s face, the relief which filled every spare section of her body.

She was a virgin, and, while Damon loved sullying the virtue of just about every woman he came across, he felt an enormous responsibility to her; he moved slowly and kissed softly, and, when she arches against him in total pleasure, he knew this had gone too far.

They ran into Stefan and Lexi completely by accident. They were going to a revival of _Gone With The Wind_ and, as Bree is pressing kisses to his throat, he heard his brother say his name. It suddenly occurred to Damon it is October, which means Stefan’s birthday, and if he allowed himself to feel guilt, he would certainly feel it when Stefan and Lexi both glare at him and his innocent date.

“She’s a child, Damon,” Stefan upbraided later, and Damon wanted to fire back something particularly sharp about just how womanly Bree was, but he did not want to turn her into locker room talk to piss off his brother.

Damon knew he was in too deep.

He left three days later without so much as a goodbye, and, when he returned to Georgia ten years later, Bree stared at him distrustfully. Even as they laughed or drank or screwed, Damon felt the way she tempered herself, never fully allowing him back inside.

After she has betrayed him and he has wreaked his vengeance, Damon could not help but wonder how differently everything would have turned out if he had just said goodbye twenty years earlier.

 **4\. Liz Forbes**

 _”You have lost me forever.”_

It was even worse than _”It’ll always be Stefan,”_ because, at least, with _that_ proclamation, Damon knew he would still have Elena in some other form. She was too good and too true of a person to ever disavow him entirely; if he had just left the house after trying to force the kiss on her, their friendship would have remained intact.

But he killed her brother, and, if there was one thing Damon understood, it was the depth of love a person could have for their brother. Hell, for over a century he had actively _despised_ his brother, but Damon still would have taken a stake to anyone who dared try to hurt him.

She would never forgive him for this, and, with her declaration earlier, Damon _felt_ for the first time in years.

He kept trying to push the button, to turn it off so it didn’t tear him up so badly, but it wasn’t working. The masochist in him had allowed him to feel every ounce of pain Katherine had wrought through the years, but even Damon cannot withstand knowing he had ruined everything with Elena. He waited for the blissful nothingness of his emotions to fade; when it did not, he had to try other methods.

God bless Jack Daniels.

Damon was not sure how long he had been drinking or how long he had been drunk, but when the bartender tried to get him to leave, Damon refused. He tried to use compulsion, but he was far too drunk, and, when the bartender threatened to call the cops, Damon debated eating him before remembering how he had sworn to Elena he would not hurt anyone.

Too late for that now, he supposed.

Liz sidled up in her uniform, no deputy at her side, and Damon realized she did not think he was a threat. It would have been amusing months earlier, but now there is a sweet comfort in Liz’s face, at her awkward shutter steps towards friendship. Liz Forbes was the only person Damon knew who was lonelier than he was, and he genuinely liked her. If he was the type of vampire who had friends, Liz would qualify as his _best_ friend.

You know, after Alaric.

“What are you doing, Damon?’

“Drinking till it stops hurting,” he answered truthfully, throwing back another shot before slapping the bar with vigor.

“What stops hurting?”

“I’m the fucking plague, Liz. Even when I don’t mean to, I kill everything around me.” Stretching over the bar to reach the bottle, he added, “You should run away.”

“I’m not going to run away,” Liz replied mildly, taking the bottle carefully from his grip as she drug him to his feet, slinging his arm around her shoulders for support.

“And why is that?” he asked as they stumbled towards the door.

“Because I’m your friend.”

Lifting his alcohol soaked head, Damon met her gaze before pathetically offering, “I don’t have any friends.”

“You have me.” Squeezing his hand, she teased, “What do you think I’m doing here?”

“You’re the sheriff.”

“I’m off-duty,” she retorted, easing him down into the passenger’s seat of her squad car.

“You’re never off-duty. We’re alike that way.”

Damon saw the way pain flickered over her face before she begrudgingly nodded. “Guess that means I’m the plague, too.”

“I kill every relationship that could be important,” Damon divulged as Liz navigated her car through the streets.

“My daughter hates the sight of me, and I turned my ex off women completely.”

“My brother hates me.”

“My sisters openly talk about how I’m going to die alone.”

“Everybody dies alone,” Damon stated with authority.

“Yeah but you don’t have to _live_ alone.”

Damon reached over, setting his hand atop Liz’s on the steering wheel. With more genuineness than he had used in years, he swore, “You’re not alone, Liz. I’m here…even if I’m hammered.”

Tears shone in her eyes as she helped him into the boardinghouse. Damon was only vaguely aware of what was happening when Liz pressed a kiss to his forehead and murmured, “You’re a good man, Damon.”

As he drifted into alcoholic nothingness, Damon knew unequivocally Liz Forbes was the best friend he ever had.

And then, only days later, she threw him underground with Stefan, intent on killing them, and Damon knew she was just like everyone else.

 **5\. Elena Gilbert**

After Katherine feeds him Klaus’s blood, Damon did not have time to consider the kiss Elena gave him, not when Stefan was out there with Klaus. Almost immediately he and Elena go to Alaric’s apartment to see if they can find some sort of clue as to where Klaus could have taken him, and Damon’s stomach dropped when he saw the blood bags scattered across the floor.

Stefan had never been able to handle the bloodlust, to find the balance; while he had done many things to torment his brother over the course of their long lives, Damon had always tried to get him to drink in moderation, to be able to get a grip on the cravings. Damon had wished Stefan an eternity of misery, but he did not want Stefan to die.

Human or not, vampire or not, he had promised to always protect Stefan and he had never felt more like a failure than he did as Elena gathered up the bags with shaking hands.

“Klaus made him drink,” Elena stated, dawning realization in her voice. “That means he’ll be the way he was after he had my blood, right?”

Damon wanted to lie, but he knew he couldn’t, not when the stakes were so high. “This much blood? It’ll be worse.”

“Like when you were turned?”

All Damon could think of was the migrant village Stefan took out during World War One, the dozens upon dozens of drained bodies, and the disgust that had filled him as he and Lexi surveyed the damage in their hunt to find him. “Worse,” was all he said.

Elena started to cry as he called Bonnie, explaining they needed a locator spell.

Stefan had been gone for almost a month before the kiss came up again. Elena had fallen asleep on the couch while he and Alaric charted yet another possible course Bonnie’s spell revealed. After Alaric left, Damon found her curled up so tightly before the fire, and he felt his heart squeeze painfully at how scared she seemed, even in sleep.

He wanted to blame himself for her pain, for Stefan’s current situation. Once he had said it aloud, how none of it would have happened if he just hadn’t gone to interfere with the sacrifice, how Stefan would be safe and Jenna would be alive if he hadn’t been so selfish to feed her his blood and then try to undo it. Elena immediately protested, shaking her head fervently.

“If you hadn’t, Caroline and Tyler would be dead, and he would’ve found a different way to get to Stefan. We were fucked no matter what we did.”

It’s the first hint to Damon she has forgiven him for what he did, that he has been absolved of the sins he has committed with her name on his lips.

He picked her up from the couch, cradling her body like a child’s, and he carried her up the stairs, intent on putting her in Stefan’s empty bed. As he went to open the door, Elena shook her head against his chest, surprising him.

“I can’t be in there,” she murmured, blinking up at him with the doe eyes which captured him effortlessly.

“Where do you want to be?”

“Can I stay with you?”

When Katherine had posed a similar question 145 years earlier, even then Damon knew it was calculated, a deliberate tease baiting him towards sin; when Elena posed the question, all Damon could hear was the ache of someone who needed to feel connected, and she was choosing to make that connection with _him_.

He didn’t put her down as he reversed course down the hallway, but Elena didn’t ask him to either. Inside his room, Damon carefully set her on the bed before backing away, needing the distance to remind himself that she was vulnerable and still not his.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he mumbled, tugging clothing from the dresser.

Elena nodded as she toed off her shoes and slipped beneath his sheets, snuggling against the pillows.

Damon stayed in the shower for an inordinate amount of time, needing Elena to be asleep when he got out, needing to calm his heart. When he fully drained the hot water heater, he finally returned to the bedroom, wearing more to sleep in than he had since 1864, only to find Elena had stripped down to a tank top and boy shorts, her hair already tangled around her face, long limbs splayed.

Damon had imagined this sight so many times, and he prayed with everything inside of him he would get to see it one day when he was not just a stand-in for his brother.

In the morning, Damon awoke when Elena began to stir, and he realized sometime in the night they had become entangled, their legs twisted around each other, lying face to face so closely Damon could kiss her forehead without moving. He wanted to pull away, afraid she would assume the worst, but her hand was pressed against his chest, resting atop his heart, and it was quite possibly the sweetest way he had ever slept with a woman.

“Stop squirming,” Elena ordered sleepily, keeping her eyes closed.

Damon swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to stop himself from brushing back the hair hiding her face. “Sorry.”

“You talk in your sleep,” she reported softly, a ghost of a smile flickering across her lips.

“Yeah? What did I say?”

“You kept telling me to stay in bed,” she chuckled, finally blinking her eyes open, “because Coretta would get the baby. Who’s Coretta?”

Damon was grateful he wasn’t able to blush. “She was our nanny when we were kids. I don’t know why I’d be dreaming about her.”

“Sounded more like you were dreaming about me,” she countered, and Damon could hear the teasing in her voice. It was so different from the way Katherine used to tease him, as if she was superior and knew secrets he did not; this was playful, and Damon could feel himself start to relax despite their position.

“Can’t imagine why,” he retorted, propping himself up on his elbow as Elena smiled up at him. “You went to bed with significantly more clothing on.”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen everything before since I got everything secondhand. Thirdhand?” Her brow furrowed. “Do you think now that the curse is broken, there’ll be another one of me in 500 years?”

“There’ll never be another you,” he declared, and he could hear the lovesickness in his own tone, hated his transparency when it came to her.

Elena’s face softened as she sat up, sitting cross-legged to face him as he pushed himself upright. Damon did not move as she took his face between her palms and brought him to her. He did not move, afraid to upset the peace which had settled around him; he ached with want.

“Nothing can happen until Stefan is safe and we can figure things out.”

Damon nodded. “I understand.”

“I _want_ to figure things out.”

“It’s okay if you only did it because you thought I was dying,” Damon lied, trying to force nonchalance into his voice, wanting to give her a way out.

“That’s not why I did it.”

“Then why did you?” he can’t help but ask.

Elena pulled back, wrapping her arms around herself in a poor imitation of a hug. “When we still thought Katherine was in the tomb, I told Stefan that I believed everything you did, you believed you had done out of love. And that doesn’t make what you did _right_ ; it just made it understandable. The things you’ve done _to_ me, _for_ me, I know you’ve done because you love me.”

“Elena – “

“I really try sometimes to not care about you, to _hate_ you, but I can’t because, when we’re alone, I see it.”

“See what?”

“The guy who would do anything for his brother. The guy who was prepared to let Elijah kill him in Slater’s apartment to protect me. The guy who escorted me at Miss Mystic Falls when he got nothing out of the deal. _That’s_ the guy I kissed.”

“I don’t know if I could be that guy all the time.”

“But you could try?”

Damon heard the hope in her words, and he felt his stomach flip in a way it hadn’t since 1864. “I could try.”

It took four months to find Stefan and another three for him to detox and return to normal. For seven months, Damon bided his time, waiting for what he feared would be the worst heartbreak of his life, waiting for the bottom to drop out once again. He knew Elena was not deliberately cruel, but he also knew everything was different now that Stefan was back, now that her first-choice was available.

Eight months after Elena kissed him for the first time, Damon came home from the Grill to find her waiting on his bed, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She said nothing, the expression on her face revealing everything, and Damon couldn’t help but grin.

Later, as Elena dozed in the circle of his arms, her skin warm against his, Damon could not stop pressing kisses to her shoulders and neck just to verify she was still there, she wasn’t going anywhere.

“I love you,” he sighed into her hair, tightening his hold on her.

“I love _you_ ,” she replied, pushing back against him. “Now go to sleep.”

Damon chuckled. “I don’t want to.”

“I’ll still be here in the morning, Damon,” Elena assured him, twisting her head to look him in the eye. “Just go to sleep.”

As they drifted towards sleep together, Damon knew with certainty all the women who came before Elena were simply practice. _This_ was love.

Before dawn, Damon shook her awake, bundling her up in a blanket as he led her down the stairs to the backyard. As Damon pulled Elena into his lap, she buried her face in his throat as she asked, “What are we doing?”

“We’re watching the sun rise.”

“Why?”

“Because this is a new adventure, and it should start with the sun rise.”

Elena rolled her eyes but dutifully turned towards the horizon, pink and orange spilling over the tree line. “You’re really weird sometimes.”

“But you love me.”

“But I love you,” Elena confirmed.

That was all Damon needed to hear.


End file.
